Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We welcome the representatives from the Ulster Teachers' Union: Julie Orr, president of the union; and Sandra Brown, a former president. If you make a short presentation, we will then open it to members.

Ms Julie Orr (Ulster Teachers' Union): Thank you very much. Sandra and I are primary-school teachers. Although I am seconded out for the year, I am usually a primary 5 teacher. We want to bring to you the point of view of practising teachers and principals. I will speak for a little bit, then Sandra will speak for a little bit, and then you are welcome to ask questions. Hopefully, it will be useful to you.

The Ulster Teachers' Union thanks the Education Committee for the opportunity to give oral feedback on the Addressing Bullying in Schools Bill. As teachers and principals, we take bullying seriously and welcome any supportive measure that will help to tackle and prevent bullying in schools. Although we agree with the Minister's concern about the need to address the ongoing issue of bullying, we are concerned about aspects of the Bill. We hope that you found our written response helpful in highlighting some of the concerns raised by our members and that this presentation will help to outline those further from the viewpoint of practising teachers and principals.

We want to take a closer look at the definition of bullying as outlined in the Bill. As teachers and principals, we know only too well the difficulties that schools can face when attempting to clarify whether alleged incidents or behaviours are, indeed, bullying. As a primary-school teacher working with young children, I know that the definition of bullying can initially be difficult for children to understand, despite teachers' best efforts to help pupils. Young children can find it difficult to distinguish between simple disagreements and incidents of bullying. We work hard in schools to support the children in our classes as they continue to develop their social skills of sharing, turn taking and working as part of a group, and we daily encounter natural frictions between groups of children. Simple issues such as who gets to be first in the line can seem vital to a seven-year-old. As for who gets first pick —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): That can also apply to a few Committee members.

Ms Orr: It never changes. It also applies to golden time and who gets to choose the balls or hula hoops first. Those are examples of issues that teachers navigate and, it is important to note, resolve daily. The Ulster Teachers' Union, therefore, welcomes a clear definition of bullying to help to clarify the issue not only for pupils but for schools and parents. We agree with the definition of bullying in clause 1(1):

However, the UTU remains concerned about the reference in clause 1(2), where bullying is defined as an "omission", as we feel that it is almost impossible for education practitioners to judge that dividing line between an act and an omission when deciding whether bullying has taken place.

I know that you discussed the issue this morning, but the UTU also has concerns over when and where schools are responsible for the prevention, recording, interpretation of and dealing with incidents of bullying. While the Ulster Teachers' Union understands the important responsibility of schools in the prevention of bullying through anti-bullying policies in schools, personal development and mutual understanding (PDMU) lessons, learning for life and work lessons, circle times and anti-bullying assemblies, the union is concerned that schools may be put under impossible and unreasonable pressures to account for incidents that could be considered grey areas, as you discussed, beyond what can be reasonably expected from the duty of care of a school.

One such area that is highlighted in the Bill is the reference to pupils travelling to or from school during the school term. Our written response mentions the difficulties in assessing the motivation of such incidents and in the gathering of evidence or information about what may or may not have happened in order to fulfil the expectations of clause 3. I know that you join me in asking questions and seeing it from a different point of view. At what point on a journey home is the school no longer to be held responsible for recording and dealing with bullying incidents? Are secondary school students who walk home, stop off at some shops, meet friends for coffee or head to the park still on their journey home?

I will expand on our concerns on those grey areas. We also consider cyberbullying and ask in what circumstances a school should be responsible for a cyberbullying incident. Are schools responsible if the cyberbullying happens using school equipment? Are schools responsible if it happens during lunchtime using personal mobile phones? Are schools responsible if it happens after school over Facebook or Twitter? How can schools deal effectively with those matters? What adequate disciplinary procedures should be put in place? Do they vary depending on where and when the incidents take place?

As other witnesses were talking, I was reminded of the fact that the Bill is about addressing bullying in schools. I suggest, therefore, that there may be some confusion not over whether an incident is bullying but whether it is the responsibility of schools to deal with it.

The UTU feels that schools must be provided with clear, up-to-date and relevant guidance that not only details how and when appropriate action should be taken but details what appropriate action can be taken to ensure that bullying is addressed in a consistent manner.

I move on to clause 2. The Bill clearly states the duty placed on boards of governors to determine and secure measures to prevent bullying as well as their duty to record all incidents or alleged incidents of bullying involving a registered pupil at a school. The Ulster Teachers' Union wants to highlight to the Committee the fact that governors are appointed in a voluntary, unpaid capacity and, in many cases, do not come from educational backgrounds. Given the weight of responsibility that the Bill places on schools and their boards of governors, it is simply unacceptable to propose that the Department may, from time to time, publish guidance on how a board of governors is to comply. It is unarguably the responsibility of the Department to ensure that sufficient training and guidance is provided to boards of governors and schools prior to the implementation of legislation. We want clarification of the support, training and guidance that will be made available to boards of governors and schools to help them to carry out the role.

Ms Sandra Brown (Ulster Teachers' Union): My thanks to the Committee for the opportunity to be here today. We recognise that a vital part of the success or otherwise of any Bill in operating effectively and for the purpose intended is the perspective of the actual practitioners, so I am very much presenting on behalf of teachers and the perception of what the Bill might entail at a practical level.

I will first look at record-keeping. The following areas were highlighted to us. Should it be standardised? Should it be in digital format? Should it be accessible to the Department and the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI)? It would probably be good to have it standardised, which would make things easier administratively across schools when children move. We have no problem with records being in digital format. We have some concern about the use of data and sharing it with the Department and its arm's-length bodies, particularly the inspectorate. We see a danger, unfortunately, of it having the potential to become something that it should never be.

Without elaborating on the unfortunate journey of data usage in the context of assessment in our schools, surely the gathering of bullying data has the potential to lead to misleading interpretations or some kind of bullying league table, as was mentioned this morning. League tables are perceived to have become a part of the school landscape. To be placed on a bullying league table is not a particularly good place for schools to be. Whilst we recognise that transparency and openness have their part to play in all public organisations, we ask whether the reporting of cold, often out-of-context data is in the best interests of schools, which often work against all manner of difficulties in order to progress constantly the raising of standards in their unique setting. As was said this morning, schools sit in a great range of settings. The level of bullying in one school is not at all reflected across all sectors in all environments. That can no more tell the story of a school than any similar kind of reporting of assessment data can. Much of teachers' focus is on what is being done with all the data that we submit to the system and how that will come back to bite us when the inspectorate arrives at our door. Every man's reality is their own perception, but it is a real perception, shall we say.

As I said, we have some experience of how the Department can use data for dual purposes. We sometimes question the motives behind that, so we question the motivation for requiring all this data. We have concerns about how the inspectorate might choose to interpret it.

I will stay with recording. I highlight the Department's consultation document on addressing bullying in schools. The overview states, at point 15, that the latest survey, which was undertaken in 2011, showed that 39% of year 6 and 29% of year 9 children had experienced bullying in schools in the two months preceding the survey. I do not know what definition the Department used to determine an act of bullying or if it simply allowed children's subjective assessment. The fact remains that around one third of the children felt themselves to have been bullied. As teachers, we put that into context: a class of 30 children can, in any two-month period, expect to have 10 reported cases of bullying — at least one a week every week.

I note the suggestion put to you last week by the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum for a monitoring and recording mechanism. It would include the motivation involved, an outline of the incident, a report on the support offered to both victim and perpetrator and an ongoing record of support and interventions, including a note on the effectiveness of the intervention. Should the Department decide to adopt such a mechanism, it should be understood that that involves a huge time budget. As teachers, we already have grave concerns about ever-growing administrative demands that interfere with our ability to prepare and teach our young people. Our question is along these lines: if this becomes such a bureaucratic exercise that it takes up more time than we already give to addressing bullying in schools, which is already considerable, what do we stop doing in order to implement a further layer of bureaucracy? It is not that we do not want to deal with it — we cannot not deal with it — but the reporting and recording trigger a warning sign. We have so many layers of this for so many things. Time is our ever-present bully. As teachers, we find that there is never enough time. So we request —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Time is our bully as well, Sandra. [Laughter.]

Ms Brown: I can finish now if you wish.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. I will pick up on two points. Your submission expresses concern about clause 2 and the absence of a role and responsibility for parents: will you expand on that a little?

Ms Brown: That is one of my points. The Minister said, through his Education Works campaign:

That highlights the vital role that families can play in helping children to do well at school and improve their chances. As we see it, surely there is room in any Bill to include the specific responsibilities of the Department to engage with parents and educate them as to the nature of bullying and what constitutes bullying, as well as taking the bull by the horns and helping them to understand the effects not only on their child but on other children, because parents often perceive that their child is always the victim. There has to be a realisation that, if 30% of our children are victims of bullying, there are, in theory, 60% who are doing the bullying. If the Department says that it wants to engage with parents and sees their role as vital, it needs to teach parents not only about the definition but about how they as parents ought to guide their children and young people. We cannot do it all in schools.

Ms Orr: I will pick up on that point. It is important that there is partnership in schools. Schools work very much alongside parents on the ethos and policy of schools, and it is important that there is a combined vision of what we want from our anti-bullying policies and what we expect to happen if they have a concern about bullying. Quite often, the perception — I heard it this morning — is that teachers are not doing anything about it. We want to make it very clear that we take bullying seriously, we want to resolve it, and we work with the children but need parental support to be able to do that.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Julie's point is valid. Everybody has to be careful to ensure that we do not view this as a meteor from outer space and that, if something is not in the Bill, it is not happening or that a range of things are not happening already.

I have one final point. A number of members want to ask questions, but I want to give you the opportunity to respond. We have received mixed evidence about the scope of the Bill, specifically on whether, from a definitional point of view, bullying should be seen and defined as being between pupils or whether it should also include teacher-on-pupil bullying. There are different views on that, but I will give you the opportunity to respond with your view.

Ms Brown: It is our view that the Bill ought to confine its remit to pupil-to-pupil bullying. That in itself has a lot of grey areas. As was mentioned this morning, there are other pathways whereby other kinds of bullying ought to be pursued, probably with greater weight.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I just wanted to give you the opportunity to respond. A number of members have questions, so they should try to be reasonably brief.

Mr Craig: I will try to be brief. I am looking at your comments about the unenforceability of tackling bullying outside the physical school boundary: will you elaborate on that? I do not see how it is unenforceable.

Ms Orr: If an incident outside school has been reported, it is difficult to know exactly what happened. That is one of the grey areas, because you are going on reported incidents that you do not have control over. You do not know the motivation behind it or what was going on, which can be difficult. As I said, the Bill addresses bullying in schools. We are simply raising those questions as well. There are boundaries. It involves pupils in your care, which we address, as I said, through circle times, PDMU lessons, looking at cyberbullying and at how we travel on buses, but the difficulty is in reporting it and dealing with it. We need further guidance and support on that, which is what we are calling for. Sandra, do you have any comments?

Ms Brown: I have a comment, based on what I heard in this morning's discussions and trying to determine the reach and remit of the Bill. We talked a lot about timing and geographical distance. I am throwing this out here as a thought. Perhaps that needs to be shifted away from the time and geographical setting towards the impact on young people. If the reach and remit of the Bill is to address bullying as it impacts on children as opposed to the time and distance from a particular geographical space — the school — I do not know what that adds to the thought process here this morning.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): That is useful. To be fair, we are trying to get our heads around the way that that is dealt with.

Mr Craig: Julie, I am trying to figure out what you mean by its being unenforceable or more difficult to enforce than anything else. The one thing that I have learned about bullies is that they are rather clever individuals. They will not do it in front of a teacher or principal, because everything would then be very black and white. They do it behind the bike shed or wherever. It will be out of sight and out of mind, so doing it outside of school is no more difficult to prove than if it were in school. I have seen all that happen. You bring pupils in, question them and get five different viewpoints on what actually happened, and you then make a judgement call. That is what it is.

Ms Orr: That is the difficulty. A lot of responsibility is placed on teachers to make a judgement call on something that has happened that is completely out of their control. That is why I am saying that clarification and guidance are needed. If something happens at a youth club, where does the responsibility for the leaders of that youth club lie? If it happens at 8.00 pm in a park, how do we have control? It is an investigative process to find out exactly what happened. It is difficult to know what to do in those areas, and a big responsibility is being placed on schools. There is a concern about that level of responsibility. We must ensure that, if we have that responsibility, we will be supported in that role. That is the difficulty in placing pressures on schools. We want to carry out our jobs to the best of our ability, but we need support to do that. Overall, a lot more discussion is needed on what I classify as grey areas, especially with cyberbullying, and at what point it becomes such an issue that you need to involve outside agencies and bodies, which should have the proper people to deal with those incidents. I do not have all the answers. I am raising those points as questions.

Mr Newton: I thank the delegation for coming up. Would it be true to say that, generally speaking, you are anti the legislation?

Ms Orr: No.

Ms Brown: No, not at all. In fact, we very much welcome the willingness to have a definition. We have been looking for that. We have a concern because we did not understand it, and there was not enough about what "omission" means in the context of the Bill as it is just mentioned at clause 1(2). Is that an omission on behalf of teachers and schools to know about a bullying incident or to do something about it? We do not know, and we need guidance.

In schools, there is a certain fear — I use that with a small "f"— about the point at which we almost become investigators. Julie mentioned that. We have been trained not to investigate pastoral care and sensitive issues. That is for other agencies to do. Teachers are a bit nervous about the point at which they are determining the motivation — we find that difficult — behind an act or an omission, whatever that is. We may overstep a mark that makes us investigate where we would not investigate if it was under the umbrella of pastoral care or child protection. There are too many unknowns. We are not against there being legislation, but we need more clarity.

Ms Orr: I go back to something that was said earlier. It is a short Bill that has huge implications, and a lot more information needs to be pulled out of it as to how it will work in a practical sense. We are simply raising some of those issues to help you to think about it. It is not that we are anti the Bill in any way, but issues need to be considered and teased out.

Mr Newton: To use Sandra's phrase, we are struggling with the "reach and remit" of the Bill as it stands.

You expressed your concerns about the roles of boards of governors and made the point about their being there in a voluntary capacity, having other employment and giving their time freely. In your professional opinion, what might need to be put in place for boards of governors if the legislation goes ahead?

Ms Orr: We mentioned that support and training should be available for boards of governors. That is very important. If they have a duty to fulfil, there should be adequate training, support and guidance from the Department of Education to allow them to fulfil that duty correctly. It will be important that they have a good understanding of what is expected from schools and how they go about implementing it. It is about ensuring that that support is available for schools to make that possible.

Ms Brown: Support and education for governors as well as for teachers — practitioners at all levels — needs to come before a Bill comes into force. We cannot put the cart before the horse, because somebody will fall foul of the legislation.

Mr Newton: Incidents when pupils are travelling to and from school have repercussions for the school day; you pursued that with Jonathan a wee bit. I cannot imagine that you would not be aware of such incidents.

Ms Orr: It is important to note that schools already deal with incidents. They have a duty of care for pupils in their schools, and they deal with incidents.

I think that the concern is especially about the reporting of incidents, the motivation behind that and the implications that come from it. Already, it is more that there is guidance on how schools are meant to deal with these incidents. Is it sufficient to say that we have been made aware that there are problems travelling to and from the bus and that we will, therefore, tackle that in our assemblies and PDMU lessons? Is that meeting the requirements, or is more expected through investigating and recording independent incidents and the motivation behind them? Again, it is about how it actually works out on a practical, day-to-day basis. The aim of this is to standardise how bullying is tackled in schools. We would hope, then, that it would help to clarify some of those situations to help make it more standardised so that schools know what to do when these incidents occur.

Mr Hazzard: Thanks for your presentation. Following on from what Robin said, I took it that you were not welcoming the Bill, especially given your submission. It is perhaps the first submission we have had that does not overtly state at the start that this is a welcome development in tackling bullying. You have maybe cleared that up a bit.

I still remain a wee bit confused about your point about travelling to and from school. For example, I feel that what you are suggesting would nearly be a retrograde step in how schools have managed this in recent years. Jonathan is right about bullies being smart. It used to be a case of, "Wait until you get outside school" or "Wait until you get to the bus stop" and that sort of stuff. However, schools have now got to the point where, as soon as you put your uniform on in the morning, you are an ambassador for the school, so, when that uniform is on, your behaviour has to be impeccable. I think that the vast majority of school buses have cameras. It is nearly easier to identify bullying on a school bus than on the football pitch or in the changing room in a school, so, again, I find it strange that you suggest that we should not look at travelling to and from school as an area that we need to address as well.

Finally, I take some of your concerns about data on board. We know through anecdotes that, in a large number of incidents, there has been a failure of schools to deal with homophobic bullying. If we had the data, we might be able to do a lot more with that. For me, certainly, recording and disaggregating data will be crucial to going forward. You seem to suggest — again, for whatever reason — that we should stay away from that. Again, those are probably more statements than questions, but maybe —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): If you want to respond, go ahead.

Ms Brown: Our concerns are about the purposes for which the data are used. They may be used specifically in the Department to help schools progress to a better place for all young people and, ultimately, to eradicate a lot of what happens in a school that makes it an uncomfortable place for children. However, they may also be used almost as a weapon by other arm's-length bodies in the Department. As we have seen in the past, instead of giving the proper data, schools have tried to steer ways around that. We do not want to be labelled as the school that fails to deal with bullying in the same way that we do not want to be labelled as the school that fails to reach so many GCSEs at grades whatever-it-happens-to-be at any moment in time.

Schools do not want to not deal with things that make it difficult for children to learn effectively, comfortably and with as high a degree of safety and security as possible. We would look for assurances that data are going to be used only for the purposes of determining where help is needed. It is not just anecdotal that schools have found themselves in the unfortunate position of not having the right data determining outcome of their inspection report. That may have been through no fault of the school. It may have been opened only a number of years, so it did not have the data available.

Ms Orr: Can I add one point very quickly? We are concerned not just about workload implications but about clarification over some of the details, whether it is incidents of bullying or alleged incidents. There is a difference, especially in primary schools, where that definition can become unclear to the children. They may feel that it is a bullying incident, and, when it is investigated, it is found that it is actually just because those involved both wanted to be in team A in the football or whatever. I think that that is important for recording through a centrally based recording system. Is it an incidence of bullying that has been dealt with and where there were issues, or is it an alleged incidence of bullying? Clarification is needed. We are not trying to be negative about a Bill that is going to help —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): No.

Ms Orr: We very much welcome anything that will help schools deal with bullying, but there are a lot of details that we would like clarification of.

Mrs Overend: Thank you for the discussion this afternoon. I want to ask about recording the information. From what I understand, the Bill is intended to bring in best practice, so a lot of recording is probably happening already. It is not about adding unnecessary bureaucracy but about creating best practice across all schools. It is not intended to burden you with something unnecessary. What best practice goes on at the minute?

Ms Orr: That is important to know. We raise that because we have not had clarification about what will be expected of us in that. As you know, schools already record any incidence of bullying. It is best practice to record details of who was involved, what happened and how it was resolved. However, because there are no details on how it is to be recorded, using the system and what details have to be recorded, that is just a concern that we raise.

Mrs Overend: That is why I ask. I am not a teacher; I do not know. What do you do?

Ms Orr: If there is any instance of bullying, a teacher speaks to the principal and follows school procedures and policies on how it is dealt with and recorded.

Mrs Overend: What detail is recorded?

Ms Brown: Schools differ in what they record.

Mrs Overend: What do you see as good practice? That is really what I am trying to get at.

Ms Brown: Good practice is to look for both sides or the multiple sides of whatever the issue has been and to record everybody's perception of it. It aims to resolve it, with adult suggestions on how children can progress from the stalemate or whatever it is.

I am a primary-school teacher. In a primary school, incidents are probably less complicated; at least they are in my setting. However, in other settings, perhaps in the city, they are more complicated. Quite often, with us it is just a matter of one child wanting his self will over another. It is not terribly long-term, but it gets noted. Usually, it is put into the book. Our parents like to be informed, and with us they just get informed as a matter of course. They may be told, "This happened today. We spoke to so-and-so about it, and this is the outworking of it. Keep a wee eye to it, see if you hear anything else about it and feed back to us".

With primary schools, it is perhaps a less formal intervention in the children's lives, because we are loath to label children, certainly at primary level and even at post-primary level, or to make them somehow criminally responsible for something. We do not like to judge people's behaviour and potential behaviour on their teenage years. I think that would be very unfair to every one of us as well if we were never able to live out and beyond what we were perhaps thought of as in our teenage years. We do not want to label children in any way that comes back on them.

Mrs Overend: I am sure that you learn from how you have dealt with one incident about how to deal with another one in the future. How often do you look back on your recording of incidents?

Ms Brown: As the senior management team, we would do an audit once a year. We do an audit of all those things, whether it is special needs, pastoral care and so on. All that comes within the overview on an annual basis.

Mr Lunn: Thanks, ladies, for your presentation. I am sorry about this, but I am still on recording and so on. To what extent do you think the records that are demanded by the Bill, which effectively tidy up what should already be there, to be honest, should be made available and to what use should they be put? You would not, I am sure, argue about the necessity to collate this information for the purposes of overall statistics to see what the trends are and what perhaps needs to be done about it at a higher level by the Department. I wonder what needs to happen beyond that. To me, the most important line is in clause 3(2)(b):

If I was a parent who was thinking about a school, I would fear that the publicity around this legislation may prompt other parents to start asking questions about bullying that they probably would not have asked in the past. If a parent at an open evening asks about a school's anti-bullying policy, they would be given a copy of it. In future, if they ask about the incident rate and what the school has done about it, to what extent do you think they should be given any information along those lines, and in what form should it be given? Should it be verbal or written, should it be redacted, or should they not be given anything at all and just be told what the policy is?

Ms Brown: We would possibly be tied to whatever they are legally obliged to be able to access, which would be over and above what we in an individual school might want. It was a concern for us, especially where intent is concerned. If we, as practitioners, put down even a primary intent, a young person might come back and say, "That is not why I did it at all". Yet that is logged as the incident, and that is what the data show. They will show that we, as practitioners, felt that that was the primary intent or motive. We have difficulty with the idea of motive, and, as Chris said, we have difficulty with it because not everything is clear enough for us at the moment. Do we determine that motive from what they tell us, or do we do our own subjective thinking on it? If we record one thing and they have access to what has been recorded and come back to us at a later stage and say, "That is not why I did that", where do we stand? It raises more questions.

Ms Orr: I will return to the issue that I raised about support. In dealing with incidents of bullying and how you offer support after one has been reported, I feel almost as though the rates are much higher than I, as a teacher, seem to experience. I think a lot of the incidents are very easily dealt with and are not bullying incidents.

When a serious incident of bullying has happened, schools will deal with that, but I am saying that they need additional support. Teachers need support, as do principals and boards of governors, to make sure that bullying is effectively dealt with. We would hope that their effectiveness in dealing with bullying is 100%. If we are aware of a problem, we will do whatever we can to resolve it. We do not tolerate bullying in our schools, and I think schools make that clear. When they know about it and can deal with it, they will do so.

Mr Lunn: I am sorry to ask you a hypothetical question. Let us imagine that you were a parent who was assessing a school and you perhaps heard anecdotally that it had some problems. The school may have been able to give you certain information. On the one hand, it might say, "Yes, in the last year we have had 12 incidents of bullying, and this is how they were dealt with". On the other hand, the school might say, "Sorry; we have not had any incidents of bullying". Which one would you believe, and which one would you pay more attention to? The statistics, as you said, Sandra, indicate that in a class of 30, 10 will probably have been bullied, although I am sure that it varies from class to class.

Ms Orr: That again shows the differences in perception. There is also a difficulty in perception and intent, and that can be very difficult. It is very difficult, especially with young children. Anecdotally, I taught a child in my class who had difficulties with his movement. When he turned around to pick up a pencil, he would accidentally thump somebody with his elbow. As he turned around to apologise to them for thumping them, he would knock somebody else out of the way.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Trevor has been trying to get away with that one for years. [Laughter.]

Ms Orr: The poor child was mortified. Children would go home and tell their parents, and I would have to say to parents after school, "I am so sorry. Your child got a knock today. There was no intent in it. There was no bullying involved. It was simply a difficulty that that child had". The child himself was very apologetic, and the other children in my class were lovely about it and would say, "Don't worry. It is no problem".

Mr Lunn: OK. I still wonder to what extent —

Ms Brown: I will answer your question more directly perhaps —

Mr Lunn: What I am really driving at is staying away from league tables completely. There must be some midway point where parents or parents of potential pupils are entitled to some sort of information.

Ms Orr: Surely if parents know that schools will deal effectively with bullying, it should not matter what the bullying rate is in that school. It is about having confidence in the school and being able to say, "I know that, if I have a serious concern, I can go in and get reassurance from that school". That is the important issue. It should not be about percentages of this happening and that happening and whether it is this type of bullying or that type of bullying. It is about reassurance and the perception that schools take bullying seriously and will, with whatever power they have and to the best of their ability, deal with the issues that they face. There are sometimes incidents that are difficult for us, as practitioners, to deal with. We would like additional support to ensure that we can speak with confidence to our parents and children and say, "Listen, we are an anti-bullying school, and we will deal with incidents".

Mr Lunn: Sorry, Sandra. I interrupted you earlier.

Ms Brown: No, I interrupted you, I think, Trevor. As a parent, I would have more confidence in the school that would say, "We have had 12 incidents". That would prompt me to ask, "How effective was your outworking of all that?". If nothing else, that would highlight to me that these people know what it is, can identify it and are doing their best. Their best may not be brilliant, but I would know that they were trying.

Mr Rogers: This is a very quick point. You mentioned parents quite frequently, and I think all schools want to get parents involved in the learning of their children. We all know that, where parents are involved, children generally achieve more. Do you think that there is a place in clause 2 for some reference to the role of parents in anti-bullying policy development to give it more teeth?

Ms Orr: Do parents not already have to be involved in the policymaking of schools? There is an element of informing parents and making sure that they are fully aware.

Mr Rogers: Should there be some reference to parents in the Bill?

Ms Orr: What sort of reference are you suggesting?

Mr Rogers: I know that there is a reference to parents in the handing out of the written statement. Should there not also be a reference to parents having an involvement in the development of the anti-bullying policy? If the reference is there somewhere else, should there not be some link to it?

Ms Brown: The difficulty is that you cannot make parents do things in the way that you can make schools do something. There will always be a cohort of parents who, for all sorts of reasons, do not get involved. In school, we look for parental views on policies, and we get them from the same people all the time.

Mr Rogers: Maybe not make them but encourage them.

Ms Brown: We are always encouraging. You really need to know how inventive we can be in getting parents there for a meeting on the basis of one thing so that we can have them there for something else. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): You may be giving away trade secrets, Sandra.

Ms Brown: There is a role for parents. How you enforce that in legislation I do not know. What we could put into the legislation somewhere is —

Mr Rogers: There could be something that would reiterate that encouragement to work with the school.

Ms Orr: Parental involvement is very important.

Ms Brown: In whatever the Department gives out to inform everybody generally there must always be a direct focus on parents as part of whatever the campaign may be. However, it is difficult. It is always a battle, especially with some parents.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Julie and Sandra, thank you very much your evidence. It has been a useful session, and it will form part of our consideration as we work our way through these things. As you indicated, a lot of this will be not purely about what is in the legislation but about what support and guidance will be there. That will be critical as well. Thank you.

Ms Brown: Thank you very much. We do not envy your task. [Laughter.]